It All Began From Nothing

A long, long time ago, before there was anything, even before there was the earth, there was nothing. Just nothing. It was a great, great nothing.

It happened that the nothing was not perfect, and there appeared a small crack in the nothing. A very small crack.

Inside that crack there was a small . . . something.

The small crack became a little larger, and the small something also became a little larger. Then even larger.

It turned out that the something was a bird. At first the bird simply stood still.

Then the bird did what all birds do. It flapped its wings. It flew.

It was hard for the bird to fly. It tried very hard to flap its wings quickly, but could not. The wings flapped slowly, and the bird flew slowly.

The bird kept trying and trying and kept flapping its wings. As the bird flew, it pushed away the nothing.

The more the bird pushed away the nothing, the faster its wings flapped, and the faster it flew.

The bird flew and flew. It pushed and pushed away more and more of the nothing. It flew for a long, long time.

Finally, the bird became so tired that it stopped flapping its wings. It glided in the air while it rested.

The bird looked down and saw that it had pushed away all of the nothing. The bird saw the earth below. The land, the hills, the rivers and lakes made the bird happy.

For all its life the bird enjoyed the earth and the sky.

Time passed. A long time. Grass began to grow on the land. Later, small plants with flowers grew. Trees.

Then animals appeared. Bugs and butterflies, fish and turtles, dogs and cats.

Then people, houses. Everything.

It all began from nothing.